NDP leader has long claimed he does not trust Stephen Harper, but now that Conservatives have formed a majority government, Layton hopes prime minister will work with his party.

Jack Layton has long claimed he does not trust Stephen Harper, but now that Conservatives have formed a majority government, he suddenly hopes the prime minister will work with New Democrats.

“I said that I was going to try to work to try to make politics different in Ottawa and that is what I am going to do,” Layton told reporters in Toronto on Tuesday after the historic election saw the NDP decimate the Bloc Quebecois and even vault over the humiliated Liberals to form the official opposition for the first time in its half-century history.

The orange team is joyous after having elected more MPs than ever before — and winning a previously unthinkable number of seats in Quebec — but the Conservative majority means Layton will have a hard time holding Harper to account now that the NDP and the other opposition parties no longer have enough combined power to advance or stop legislation.

“It’s a question of working with people across the country to apply as much pressure as we possibly can to the Harper Conservatives,” Layton said when asked how he could possibly expect to deliver on the promises he made on the campaign trail when the government has a majority of seats.

“I’m actually more interested in propositions than opposition to try to actually get results for people and we’re going to put those practically proposals forward,” Layton said. “We’re going to work with Canadians to develop support for them and we’re going to both informally and formally using the techniques of Parliament work to get those ideas advanced.”

The new parliamentary make-up means that Layton will have to rely on Harper to co-operate voluntarily, which might be a problem given the NDP leader has repeatedly said he has not trusted the Conservative prime minister since he broke his own fixed-date election law in 2008.

Layton refused to say — when asked directly in both English and French — if he trusts Harper now, but he noted he has already spoken to him about it on the phone and seemed optimistic he could still get the prime minister to consider his wishes.

“What I’m going to do is reach out to Mr. Harper and say, ‘Look, we’ve had our differences in the past. There have been problems and issues on which we have simply not agreed, but Canadians have now had an election. They have given you a certain mandate. They have given us a mandate and it’s our job to do our best to work together. We’ll oppose you when we think you’re wrong, but we’ll work together to try to find areas where we can agree and I’m optimistic that we will find something,’” Layton said.

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